Jing Tu disliked this part of his obligation to the Serpent.
Ferrying junior cultivators from one universe to the other, whenever he returned to an outpost of theirs got bothersome quickly.
Providing commentary about their approximate location in the void in relation to universes of note.
Even preaching outdated gossip of universes he had visited briefly at one point or another could not keep the boredom at bay anymore.
Examining his two passengers in the immortal boat he noted that they had once again buried themselves in the frills of their clothing. Blind to the world or lack thereof surrounding them.
Jing Tu considered himself a patient cultivator. However their complete lack of care for what was a perilous journey at the best of times rubbed him the wrong way.
Deciding to teach them a little lesson to aid their comprehension, he adjust the course of the immortal boat. Now they would pass a shoal of low-ranking void fiends. Nothing dangerous to him, but maybe it would shake up his passengers a little.
Jing sighed, doing something so petty simply to gain the attention of his passengers felt beneath him, but what was he supposed to do without coming off as rude. They were far beneath himself in cultivation, but such things mattered little to immortals. Tempting an eternal grudge without any chance of time ending it before anything came of it, was foolishness incarnate. Not that he would bow his head to them, as long as their cultivation was three steps below his own.
The tiny boat shook as it passed the void denizens, tentacles, wings and other morphing appendages leaving imprints in the transparent cocoon surrounding the boat. His passengers making sounds of distress, finally having eyes for the world around them.
“Calm down Bao An, look at how calm Jing Tu is, these void creatures look horrific, but they cannot hurt us in here.”
“Oh Li Jiahoa, they may not be strong, but that barrier is the only thing between us and complete dissolution. Jing Tu likely has techniques to traverse and navigate the void. We do not.”
Jing Tu felt annoyed by the implication that he would abandon his task due to the lowest dregs the void produced: “Should this immortal boat be destroyed I would not leave you to die, the boat exists as a luxury, not a necessity. Grabbing you both and dragging you to our destination is well within my capabilities.”
The immortal boat under his control lurched slightly to the side and stopped. A highly unusual occurrence as he had not commanded it to perform such a maneuver. No matter what was wrong with the boat he had to first deal with the void beasts, before he could fix the boat.
“Stay calm and wait here.”
He coated himself in a voidwalker technique and reinforced his voidseer technique he had cast on his eyes, then he stepped outside of the immortal boat's bubble of space.
A young universe in close proximity to the immortal boat was leaking void fiends for whatever reason. Significant parts of the universe seemed to be outright missing, he couldn't tell more from the outside. He felt brief displeasure, before deciding that it was not his problem to fix.
Using his space-rending blade he cut the beasts in twain, cut an opening into the small, damaged universe and unceremoniously guided the fiend's bodies inside before they could attract more powerful void beasts. Maybe they would become a fortunate encounter for someone else or the little universe might use them to repair some of the damage. None of it his problem anymore.
Disposing of the void fiends had taken little effort. He went back to check on his passengers.
They were hugging again. A lost cause, it seemed.
Slowly checking the front of the immortal boat with his divine sense, revealed a tiny crack in the void. Something the immortal boat had gotten stuck in. Cracks like these were fairly common around universes as leftovers from entries into the void or other techniques. However this lone crack had no obvious reason to be here. It was out, randomly, in the wide void.
There was no sign of a dying universe having been in that spot, the entire area was young.
He returned to his passengers.
“Li Jiahao, Bao An, I found something of great interest to me.”
“What is it?”, Li Jiahao retorted.
“I may have found a resource stash or a hidden realm.”
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“Why are you telling us this?”, Li Jiahao asked, confusion visible on his face.
“I do not want to leave this discovery unattended. I can bring you to your new home right now and come back later, but that would take up valuable time. I would much rather that you tag along and gain some of the spoils I find less useful.”
“I need to discuss this with Bao An.”
He left them to it, and went back to concentrating all his attention on the little rift.
Normally a technique that created these types of rift would briefly cut open a small rip in the universe it came from, accomplish a purpose and then close incorrectly, leaving a scar. Their shape depended on many factors. However, he had never seen one such as this before. This scar looked like someone had poked tiny holes with a needle, all following a line, occurring at both irregular and regular intervals. Frankly, he had no idea what the purpose was behind doing this.
Li Jiahao waved him over.
“We are willing to tag along.”
Jing Tu extended his voidwalker technique to include both of them and put the little immortal boat into his storage ring.
He aligned himself properly and prepared to cut open the scar that seemed to be the most recent.
Bao An and Li Jiahao looked uncomfortable.
Jing Tu cut into the scar.
The next thing he knew, they were surrounded by primordial QI dissipating into the void. Primordial QI was extremely rare and very volatile. If it came in contact with other types of QI it violently decomposed into its components. Stunning and leaving any cultivator caught up in it completely disoriented. Something that would be a death sentence in the void.
Paling, he jumped them through the rift and slammed it shut behind himself.
He jumped without an inkling of what was on the other side, yet he still preferred maybe dying over dying for certain.
Primordial QI went off all around him. He lost any control he had over his own QI. His lungs gasped for air, something they had not done in millennia. He found none.
His techniques snapped back into place as his control over QI returned. Jing Tu brought out the immortal boat and placed the convulsing bodies of Li Jiahao and Bao An near the bow. It would take a while longer for them to recover. Needing to calm down himself, he sat down in a lotus position on top of the cabin and waited with his eyes closed.
He swept his divine sense outwards.
Primordial QI was still being converted to normal QI in an expanding bubble around his original point of entry. This bubble served as a barrier that his divine sense was unable to cross. The rapid conversion seemed to be accelerating, maybe due to the total amount of chaotic QI inside the bubble becoming larger every second.
Aside from the QI being in a chaotic state all around them, there was little else to see. The space the bubble occupied was empty. The mere fact that space and time were non-corrosive in nature, was the only differentiation from the true void they had just left.
Li Jiahao and Bao An stirred.
“Whaath happened?”, Li Jiahao slurred.
“All of us got hit with primordial QI.”
“Where are we?”
“Inside the secret realm. It is filled with primordial QI.”
“Why would you dive into the realm without exploring it with divine sense first.”, Li Jiahao accused.
“Primordial QI swamped us in the void. Going unconscious in the void is a death sentence, not even the warding of the immortal boat would have helped us.” He elaborated.
He followed it up with some advice: “Sit down and use your divine sense to try and gain something from the conversion going on all around us. Cultivators from stages far above me would give a lot to witness what we caused here by accident.”
They paused before sitting down in a lotus-position and obeying.
The bubble kept expanding ever more rapidly until it reached a seemingly maximal velocity.
Li Jiahao broke the silence: “It's too far away, my divine sense can no longer discern what is happening.”
Jing Tu set the immortal boat in motion. They caught up with the wave front.
Cultivating while observing the phenomena gave all three of them benefits of thousands of years of pure cultivation in a few days. Li Jiahao and Bao An advanced an entire realm while they sat in silence prodding and experimenting with the volatile QI.
On the sixth day Jing Tu reached a point where he could no longer gain any new insight from the current reaction of primordial QI, he would have gained more from observing inert primordial QI, but that was no longer possible, especially considering his relatively low cultivation rank in comparison to people who normally paid for the location of primordial QI. Li Jiahao had reached a similar bottleneck and had just taken to cultivating normally in the QI-rich environment of chaotic QI. Bao An had taken to firing various QI constructs at the wavefront, observing the reaction they caused.
On day eight the wavefront reached a star 'above' their current location. It confused Jing Tu, hidden realms or treasure realms would not normally include a star. Especially not one filled to the brim with primordial QI.
He brought them closer to the star to observe the reaction on the sun, as the wavefront washed through it.
Their strength was high enough that they would not be harmed, even should the worst happen and the star detonated. There was a remarkable absence of reaction as the wavefront passed through its core. No change in color or any other sign of something unusual happening. By itself the lack of reaction was mystifying and enlightening.
As the wavefront swept through the core of the star it also reached the ecliptic plane. Revealing that the star had a solar system with one tiny inhabitable planet and several barren ones.
“I found something of interest. There is a small realm with human inhabitants orbiting this star.”
“There were people living entirely submerged in primordial QI?” Li Jiahao asked incredulously.
“It appears so.”
He brought them closer to the realm to get a better resolution on his divine sense.
“This is odd. There are thousands of small items orbiting this realm. Might be debris from immortal boats, we should stay and observe from outside the potential dangerous zone.”
Bao An added: “There are realms with heavens that strike cultivators down if they try to leave before they reach immortality or the debris might be from attempts at ascension.”
“The realm is flush with newly created chaotic QI. I cannot detect a single cultivator. There are a few rank one spiritual beasts.”
“A world without cultivators, we should see what the mortals have been up to without our guiding hand.” Li Jiahao interjected.